“There’s a lot of that going around,” Thirsk agreed.

  Lieutenant Bahrdailahn had withdrawn after ushering Hahlynd in, leaving the two admirals alone in Thirsk’s day cabin. Which might be just as well, given Hahlynd’s last remark … and his own, Thirsk reflected.

  “Come on.”

  He twitched his head at the open glass doors to Chihiro’s sternwalk and Hahlynd followed him out into the cool spring morning. They stood side-by-side, leaning on the railing, gazing out across the blue harbor at the warships lying to anchor and the bevy of merchant ships and coasters gliding in and out under their more martial sisters’ watchful eye.

  There were a lot of those merchant vessels crowding the harbor and its wharves, far more even than before the Charisian privateer onslaught with which the war had begun. Virtually every one of them was no more than two or three years old, built to replace the privateers’ depredations in mass construction projects in the shipyards the Church had created to build her navy, and the building pace had redoubled since the Sword of Schueler had been loosed against Siddarmark. The Jihad’s voracious appetite for the supplies which truly were the sinews of war had seen to that, and with winter still gripping northern Howard and Haven, a huge percentage of that traffic was passing through the Gulf of Dohlar’s eastern ports. The pressure would ease a bit in the next couple of months, as the northern canal systems began to thaw once more, but for the moment Gorath was probably the only port in the world which could rival heretical Tellesberg’s normal volume of shipping, and protecting it and keeping it flowing was the responsibility of the two admirals gazing out across it.

  After a minute or two, Thirsk straightened, pulled his pipe and tobacco pouch out of his tunic pocket, and began methodically filling the pipe’s bowl.

  “Funny how peaceful it all looks, isn’t it?” he said, pausing to wave the hand holding his pipe at the panorama before them. “Especially given what’s happening elsewhere.”

  Hahlynd grunted in agreement and hauled out his own pipe. The two flag officers fussed with the implements of their addiction with all of the ritual tradition demanded of them, but Hahlynd’s eyebrows rose as Thirsk took an unusual-looking device out of his pocket. The earl smiled at his friend’s expression, then flipped up a tight-fitting, hinged metal cover on one end of the device to reveal what looked like a lamp wick with a milled metal wheel bracketed in front of it. Thirsk’s thumb spun the wheel, and Hahlynd stepped back half a pace in surprise as a fountain of sparks leapt from the wheel to ignite the wick.

  The earl only smiled again and applied the flame to his pipe, drawing until the tobacco was nicely alight. Then he extended the device to Hahlynd, who leaned cautiously forward to light his own pipe. He straightened, and metal clicked as Thirsk closed the device, extinguishing the flame.

  “Handy,” Hahlynd said after a moment. “Another of Lieutenant Zhwaigair’s ideas?”

  “No.” Thirsk held the device up between them, sunlight gleaming on its semi-polished surface. “No, actually this is something Ahlverez brought back with him. Some of his men came across it during the fighting in the Kyplyngyr. We’re not sure what the heretics call it, so we’re simply calling it a ‘lighter,’ since that’s what it does. Young Dynnys did recommend changing the fire vine oil the heretics used in it for something a little less poisonous if I was going to insist on lighting my pipe with it, though.”

  The earl gazed at the “lighter” for a moment, then slipped it back into his pocket and met Hahlynd’s gaze levelly.

  “I’m sure this thing”—he tapped his pocket lightly—“has all sorts of military applications, but think about it for a minute. The Charisians don’t really need it, but they produced it anyway. That means their ability to manufacture weapons and the ammunition those weapons need is so great that they have surplus capacity to produce things like this just because they’re … what did you call it? ‘Handy,’ I think? It sort of puts our current problems into perspective, don’t you think?”

  Hahlynd looked back at him without speaking for a second. Then he nodded, although his expression was wary.

  “Don’t worry, Pawal!” Thirsk shook his head. “I’m not going around making that point to just anybody. Ahlvyn and Ahbail—and Stywyrt, of course.” Hahlynd nodded at the earl’s reference to his senior aide, flag lieutenant, and flag captain, then tensed again as Thirsk added, “And Bishop Staiphan. He’s the one who gave me the lighter in the first place. We spent several minutes discussing the military implications of its existence.”

  “I see. And the Bishop … shared your view about them?”

  “Actually, he raised them with me, first.”

  Hahlynd nodded slowly, looking back out across the bustling harbor, and blew a smoke ring as he digested that. The ring floated away on the breeze, shredding as it went, and he frowned, wondering if that was some sort of oracle.

  “I didn’t ask you here just to show you my new toy, though,” Thirsk said, and Hahlynd turned back towards him, resting his left elbow on the sternwalk rail. “I’m afraid you and your squadron are about to begin earning your pay.”

  “Are we?”

  The question came out calmly enough, but Hahlynd’s pulse accelerated slightly. He and Thirsk were lifelong friends. There’d never been any question in the earl’s mind who he wanted in command of Dynnys Zhwaigair’s armored screw-galleys, and Hahlynd had spent months working out doctrine and training his officers and crews to apply it.

  “You are,” Thirsk confirmed. “I wish it could be under better circumstances, but the truth is that what happened to the Army of Shiloh and … certain reports from northern Siddarmark have quite a lot to do with the timing.”

  “What sort of reports?” Hahlynd asked cautiously.

  “Let’s just say that what happened to the Army of Shiloh could be about to happen to the Army of the Sylmahn, as well.” Thirsk’s expression was grim. “I don’t know that that’s the case, but from a few rumors Bishop Staiphan and I have picked up, it seems … possible, at least.”

  Hahlynd’s jaw tightened. The Kingdom of Dohlar was still reeling from the Army of Shiloh’s destruction. Everyone knew Sir Rainos Ahlverez was in a fight for his professional life as his role in the disaster was debated by his superiors, and rumor had it that Ahbsahlahn Kharmych, the Kingdom’s intendant, was deeply displeased with Ahlverez, too. There were even rumors the intendant was almost equally displeased with Father Sulyvyn Fyrmyn, Ahlverez’ intendant. If any of that was true, Ahlverez might lose more than simply his professional life before it was over.

  It must be hard for Thirsk to decide how he felt about that, Hahlynd thought, given the long-standing hatred between himself and Ahlverez. But whatever the earl felt, the mere suggestion that yet another of Mother Church’s armies might face the same sort of calamity.…

  “I’m not happy to hear that,” he said out loud. “And I’m afraid I don’t quite see how anything my squadron might do could have any effect on what happens to Bishop Militant Bahrnabai, Lywys.”

  “It won’t.” Thirsk exhaled a jet of smoke. “The problem is, Pawal, it looks to me as if the Charisians and Siddarmarkians are working to a grand plan. I think they intend to crush the Army of God’s formations—all its formations, not just Wyrshym’s—in the field before the Harchongians can come forward to reinforce them. I know they’re pushing Rychtyr steadily back along the canal, but that’s going slowly enough it’ll be high summer, at the earliest, before they reach the Kingdom. By then, we’ll have largely rebuilt the Army, and it’s pretty obvious their spies are so damned good they have to know that’s going to happen. The fact that none of the forces they used to pulverize that stupid bugger Harless are helping hammer the Army of the Seridahn suggests they’re about to be used doing something else. Something they think is even more important than finishing us off before our Army does that rebuilding. So after pondering what that ‘something else’ might be, I’m guessing Bishop Militant Cahnyr’ll see them in Cliff Peak before very much lo
nger.”

  Hahlynd nodded slowly, his eyes intent as he followed Thirsk’s logic. The earl’s access to information about the larger war was more extensive than his own, and he suspected Staiphan Maik was showing Thirsk even more than his own religious superiors might have preferred. It was sad that Mother Church had decided to keep so much secret from her own defenders, but there seemed little chance that was going to change anytime soon.

  “Unfortunately,” the earl continued, “the mere fact that they aren’t reinforcing Hanth doesn’t mean they don’t have some other plan to deal with us.”

  “Beyond taking Claw Island back from us?”

  “Oh, definitely beyond that.” Thirsk smiled with no humor at all. “They’ve been a little more cautious than I really would have expected out of Charisians, to be honest. As far as Rohsail’s been able to determine, they haven’t been operating in any sort of strength east of the Narrows, but I think that’s about to change.”

  He paused for a moment, gazing up at the white clouds drifting above the harbor, then looked sharply back at Hahlynd.

  “How much have you heard about what happened at Yu-kwau?”

  “I heard it was bad,” Hahlynd said slowly. “Why?”

  “Because it was a hell of a lot worse than ‘bad.’” Thirsk’s expression was grim. “They took their time kicking the shit out of the Bay of Alexov, and there wasn’t a damned thing the Yu-kwau squadron or the shore batteries could do about it. They brought along one of their armored galleons to take out any battery that might’ve threatened their regular galleons and backed it up with a couple of those bombardment ships. The Yu-kwau waterfront’s a total loss, and it’s going to take over a month to reopen the Saint Lerys Canal. And they paid visits to all of the Bay’s other ports, as well.”

  Hahlynd’s face tightened, and Thirsk nodded.

  “They spent more than a five-day doing the job right. And I’m sure you can figure out as easily as I could how badly that’s going to hurt the Jihad. The good news is that they didn’t have enough troops to get far enough inland to take out most of the foundries, and apparently at least some of the coasters on the bay managed to dodge around and evade them. For all intents and purposes, though, Queiroz and western Kyznetzov are completely cut off until either we push the Charisians back out of Claw Island or they get the canal open again. Oh, they could still move some material south out of Su-shau and up Anvil Bay to Brusair, but not enough to do any good. And even if the Harchongians get the canal fully back into operation, there’s nothing in the Bay of Alexov to stop the Charisians from coming right back and wrecking it all over again.”

  It was Hahlynd’s turn to nod in bleak understanding. The damage was more severe than even the worst rumor he’d heard. And he also knew what Thirsk hadn’t said. Even if the St. Lerys Canal was fully restored to service, it could handle only a fraction of Queiroz and Kyznetzov’s shipping needs. It was one of the primary canals, built in accordance with the Writ’s instructions, yet even the broadest and deepest canal was a narrow, shallow substitute for the open sea. Vicar Rhobair and his carefully trained specialists, in conjunction with the Canal Service, had done wonders to streamline and improve canal traffic, but even at their best, the canals had never been intended to meet the transport needs of a Jihad which had enveloped the entire world.

  “I’m afraid, however,” Thirsk continued, “that the Charisians—actually, the admiral they sent out to seize Claw Island is Earl Sharpfield—are well enough satisfied with what they’ve done to the Bay of Alexov to begin looking farther afield. According to Rohsail’s dispatches, their schooners and light cruisers are operating west of Saram Bay. In fact, they’ve been reported as far west as Jack’s Land and Whale Island. And given what they did to Yu-kwau, I have to think a return visit to Shwei Bay might strike them as a worthwhile excursion.”

  “That’s … not good,” Hahlynd observed, and Thirsk snorted.

  “You could put it that way. I won’t say Shwei Bay’s stark naked, but it’s not a lot better than that, especially given all the other threats Rohsail has to deal with. He’s a good man, but he doesn’t begin to have the hulls—or the right sort of hulls—to be everywhere he needs to be.”

  Hahlynd considered mentioning the fact that the Earl of Thirsk was not one of Sir Dahrand Rohsail’s favorite people, but he thought better of it. It was typical of the earl that he was able to recognize the capability of an officer whose politics differed so radically from his own. And, to be fair, Rohsail’s attitude towards Thirsk seemed to have mellowed somewhat under the corrupting influence of the earl’s sheer competence.

  “He’s got forty-two galleons,” Thirsk went on, “and we’ve just dispatched ten more to reinforce him, but you know as well as I do how quickly ships get used up when it comes to commerce protection. It looks like at least some of Sharpfield’s original galleon strength’s been recalled, although I wouldn’t want to count on that too heavily. It’d make sense—despite what just happened to Geyra Bay, there are a lot of Desnairian privateers making their merchant galleons’ lives miserable. But even if the reports are accurate, his light units are still a pain in the arse, and with the Charisians raiding that far east, Rohsail’s had to organize local convoys. That eats up a lot of his available strength, especially his lighter units. He’s managed to keep thirty or so of his galleons concentrated—enough to prevent the Charisians from dispersing their own line of battle too broadly—but he can’t engage armored ships at sea. Certainly not ships whose armor is thick enough it could shrug off our Claw Island batteries or the guns at Yu-kwau!”

  Hahlynd nodded again, and Thirsk shrugged.

  “Part of me’s inclined to take the entire Home Squadron west, combine it with Rohsail’s force, and go hunting the Charisians on the theory that we’d have to have enough cannon to handle their ironclads. There has to be some reason none of the steam-powered ones have come forward, so theoretically, if we destroyed the two they have based on Claw Island, we’d be free to deal with the rest of their galleons. Unfortunately, we’d lose far more of our fleet than they’d lose of theirs. And unless we could go back in and retake Claw Island ourselves, which seems unlikely, they’d still have a secure forward base. Worse, I’m inclined to doubt they only built two of the damned things, so losing a third of the Navy beating the ones we know about strikes me as pretty poor tactics. By the same token, while your screw-galleys would stand up to their guns better—and longer—than our galleons would, you and I both know they aren’t the most seaworthy ships ever built.”

  That was a tidy piece of understatement, Hahlynd reflected. However—

  “I can’t disagree with you about that, but if the situation’s that bad, my captains and I can sail for Saram Bay tomorrow, Lywys.”

  “I appreciate that offer—deeply. But given the weather this time of year, I doubt you’d get as far as the Dohlar Bank before a half-dozen of you broke up and went to the bottom.”

  “Maybe so, but we’re not accomplishing anything sitting in the harbor, either,” Hahlynd pointed out. “I don’t want to lose any of them to weather, either, but if we’re the only ships that have any chance against those armored galleons, I don’t think you have any choice but to send us. It’s all very well to think about defending Hankey Sound when the heretics finally get around to attacking it, but if we lose the rest of the Gulf and get driven solely back onto the canals.…”

  He waved at the crowded harbor, and Thirsk grimaced.

  “As it happens, I agree with you,” he said. “On the other hand, a thought occurred to me when all of this came up. We’ve been thinking in terms of operating the screw-galleys only in company with the Home Squadron, but we don’t have to do it that way. And if all I want is to send your squadron to reinforce Rohsail, I don’t have to send you via the Gulf at all, do I?”

  Hahlynd looked at him in puzzlement for several seconds. Then, slowly, he smiled in understanding.

  * * *

  “That’s profoundly irritating,” Adm
iral Sarmouth remarked.

  The admiral and his flag lieutenant sat on HMS Destiny’s sternwalk with their chairs cocked back and their heels resting on the rail while a spectacular tropical sun settled into the sea off the galleon’s larboard beam. Sarmouth, to the extreme displeasure of Sylvyst Raigly, his longtime steward and valet, had developed a taste for the cigars which were a Corisandian specialty. The Duke of Darcos agreed with Raigly. Unlike the majority of sea officers, Hektor had never felt any inclination to smoke, and he understood why the steward was less than enthralled by the cigar ash which had invaded his world.

  “Cayleb’s always said Thirsk’s the best commander the Church has,” he agreed now, grateful for the brisk northeasterly that blew his admiral’s smoke out to disappear far, far from him. “I asked him once if he meant the Church’s best naval commander, and he told me, no—he meant best commander, period.”

  “I think there are a few army commanders who could give the earl a run for his money,” Sarmouth demurred. “On the other hand, His Majesty has a point. Worse, Thirsk seems to have a gift for training up additional good commanders. Rohsail, for example. And Hahlynd, for that matter. I never actually realized how true that was before—”

  He waved his cigar in a gesture which somehow indicated the imagery he and Hektor had been watching on their contact lenses, and Hektor nodded.

  “I know what you mean, Sir. It is sort of … addictive, isn’t it?”

  “That’s certainly one way to put it,” Sarmouth replied dryly.

  Clearly, the baron remained in two minds about the earthquake which had reordered his world, yet he was too good a sailor not to recognize the staggering value of Owl’s SNARCs. Simply knowing about weather changes in advance was a huge advantage for any seaman, yet the advantages for any naval officer were still greater. And that didn’t even consider the ability to actually sit in on his opponents’ conversations. On the other hand.…